On Tuesday Alzheimers Australia released a report by Access Economics Keeping Dementia Front of Mind: Incidence and Prevalence 2009 - 2050.
This report highlights the fact that by 2050 1.1 million Australians are expected to have been diagnosed with some form of dementia and by 2020 there will be an estimated 75,000 baby boomers with dementia.
Dementia is predicted to become the third greatest source of health and residential aged care spending within two decades, costing 1% of GDP based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare calculations.
Probably time we baby boomers started thinking of the best way to avoid becoming one of these cited statistics and learn all about those health measures which can be adopted to lessen the possibility that it will be us who will suffer from Alzheimers or another dementia of old age.
1 comment:
I've a mate who specializes in geriatric issues, especially dementia, so keep a watching brief on the topic myself, partly because I'm a boomer (I /just/ remember Ming and realized his resignation was big news), and partly because the biology is interesting.
Cognitive reserve, usually from exercise of "long links" in the brain from younger adulthood (chess, cryptic crosswords, reading things that pull many topics together) is a major factor in maintaining function even with severe physical degeneration of the brain.
But the modern rat-race doesn't exactly make it easy to do those exercises.
It's also worth keeping an eye on the journals for stuff about diet that is starting to be investigated reasonably well.
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